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This article examines the acrimonious relationship between Elizabeth Inchbald and Mary Wollstonecraft through the lens of their differing approaches to feminism and sensibility. In her novels and plays, Inchbald relied on sentimental female characters to direct sympathy toward women, while Wollstonecraft was outspoken about the need for more progressive reform. Wollstonecraft objected to Inchbald's sentimental strategy in her reviews of Inchbald's novels, A Simple Story (1791) and Nature and Art (1796), for the Analytical Review. Although Wollstonecraft's premature death in 1797 ended any further debate between the two women, this essay argues that Inchbald's play Lovers' Vows (1798), an adaptation of August von Kotzebue's Das Kind der Liebe (1780), was informed by her relationship with Wollstonecraft, and can be read as a response to Wollstonecraft's criticism of her novels and a model of her own feminist literary strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it has been well documented that novelist and aspiring playwright Frances Burney was encouraged by playwright Arthur Murphy as she wrote her first play The Witlings (1779), the significance of his influence has never been fully acknowledged. A previously unexamined manuscript by Burney of adapted scenes from Murphy's play All in the Wrong (1761), held by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, provides new evidence of Burney's interest in Murphy's comic style and the development of her own comic voice. This essay considers Murphy's mentorship of Burney through an analysis of her journals and letters, an examination of her adaptation of All in the Wrong, and a comparison of The Witlings and All in the Wrong. I demonstrate that while Burney was influenced by Murphy's preferred comic style of laughing comedy, she also deviated from the style's emphasis on sexual exploits and focused instead on the experiences and relationships of female characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]